


Spectrum

by florencedrunk (spokenitalics)



Category: X Company (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-13 11:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spokenitalics/pseuds/florencedrunk
Summary: When Aurora asks a question, a simple question, Alfred sees all of it again. All ofher."What colour am I?"





	1. The Question

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Topaz_Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/gifts).



> This is an idea that's been buzzing in my brain for a while now, and Yuletide finally gave me the chance to make so something of it. X Company is one of my favourite show, and Aurora and Alfred two of my favourites characters ever, so I hope I made them justice.
> 
> Thank you to the awesome [mlraven](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven) for being my beta for this fic!

 

Aurora and Alfred lie side by side, catching glimpses of each other in the almost darkness. From time to time, a whisper fills the bedroom — a question, a remark, some silly joke.

They don't need to scream, anymore. Or to run. There's no ticking clock counting down to the apocalypse, no sword dangling over their heads. The War ended, and even if what they have now it's not really peace, it is enough to let them breathe again.

But when Aurora asks a question, a simple question, Alfred sees all of it again. All of _her_.

"What colour am I?"

 


	2. Blue

 

"The same colour as E-flat major," he wants to answer, initially: a cloudless sky wrapped around her head; an ocean raging at her feet; the smell of something he wouldn't be able to describe as anything but _home_ drenching her hair and her clothes and her skin.

As they kiss, a warmth like a current carries them to a room where statues look down at them in silence. Her name escapes his mouth, sweet against his tongue, smooth against his skin. He whispers it again, bringing his trembling hands on his lips, forever scorched by what he loves the most.

 


	3. Green

 

"Just like ivy," he thinks, then: with feet buried deep into the earth and arms almost touching the sky, as she crawls over monuments and cities and people, she fills everything she touches with songs and tales.

He remembers his training — the noises of Camp X being no more than flashes of black light from beyond the trees; the judging stares of the others punching holes in the back of his head.

"Alfred?" Aurora called for him. "Alfred?"

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head.

"Sorry won't save you behind enemy lines," she told him, offering him the knife. "This might.”

 


	4. Yellow I

 

(The first time he saw the team, he couldn't get over how young they all looked. He'd seen the black-and-white photos on Sinclair's bulletin board, but somehow he wasn't prepared to see them... _alive_.

As she walked away from the car, Aurora's dress billowed in the wind, and her face showed all her fear, all her sadness, but no tears. Not until later, not until everyone else was laughing and too drunk to notice. Even then, her grief exploded into euphoria.)

Maybe that's her colour: gold, immortal in his memory, shining behind his eyelids every time he closes his eyes.

 


	5. Yellow II

 

(Once, they waited for her outside a restaurant for what felt like an eternity. She finally appeared arm in arm with Neil, and cried with her head against the car window as they drove away.)

Maybe that's her colour: the same one as the wings of a poisonous butterfly, irresistible.

(When Schmidt pushed her inside the car, Neil gripped the steering wheel tighter. A few seconds later, the _Obergruppenführer_ had two guns on him. Nobody spoke, but they were all thinking the same thing: René, Tom, Harry, Sinclair, Faber. Lost allies. Lost friends. A war that can't end too soon.)

 


	6. Orange

 

She's like the sun, and everything is colder in her absence. When she _is_ there, she's everywhere, but only just before the darkness she truly reveals herself.

(In an empty church filled with candles, Alfred listened as Sabine and Aurora confessed their sins, bitter like secrets never to be told, sweet like dreams slowly fading away.

If he could choose to forget one thing, this would be it. Not the blood or the mud or the violence, but this overheard conversation. He would give Aurora a chance to tell him on her own terms, or never tell him at all.)

 


	7. Red

 

She pushed shotguns and knives into people's hands and ordered them to erase all traces of themselves, to kill all witnesses, to make sure they never got caught. When her turn came, her hands were steady even if her heart wasn't.

"Kneel!" she snarled, pointing the gun at Cecile.

The woman was already on the ground, crying quietly, unable to look away from her brother's dead body. Aurora spoke, her words filled with rage, sorrow, and something else. Something Alfred couldn't understand, but made him sure she wasn't going to press the trigger again.

"Remember my words. Forget my name."

 


	8. Purple

 

She's a colour that is rare in nature. One that is found only in the most exotic bird, in the most dream-like landscape, in the deadliest flower.

("Doesn't it make you angry?" she asks out of the blue.

"What?"

"The sky," she says, looking up at the stars. "How big it is. How small we are."

"We're not small."

"But we are," she insists. "This planet is full of people who think they're better than others. Of wars that could end in a day or never break out at all, if we would all just realise how small we are.")

 


	9. The Answer

 

"What colour am I?" Aurora asks, years after the war.

That may be a simple question, but there's no simple answer for it.

(The same colour as home, as the forest, as sadness and trauma and relief, as a sunset, as blood, as a sky on fire.)

He looks into her eyes, and sees a ray of Iight caught inside a prism. He waits for it to come out, for the rainbow to wash over him. But it never does.

"Black and white."

"Really? Why?"

"When I'm with you, it's the only time the rest of the universe shuts up."

 


End file.
